Dave Tippett's Phoenix Coyotes know their identity for playoffs

Coach lauds leadership, mental toughness in group

Since his arrival, coach Dave Tippett has found a way to bring out the best in the Coyotes. Three consecutive postseason berths for a team that floundered for almost a decade drive home that point.

Knowing that each team has its own identity, Tippett, who led the Dallas Stars to five postseason appearances in six seasons, has liked the way the Coyotes have discovered their niche. For this team, not unlike his first two here, it is believing that success cannot be attained with only a few contributions.

"I think there were a lot of questions about our group coming in, from the goaltending to continued ownership situations," he said. "I look at our group as (having) strong leadership. The question mark on the goaltending has certainly been answered. We had our core players, even though we lost a couple of guys that would be core players in our group, the people we've added have really done good job for us."

Mike Smith evolved into one of the NHL's better goalies, and despite losing an integral player such as VernonFiddler, the Coyotes brought in Boyd Gordon, who has played exceptionally well.

"The one thing I like about this group is, some of the trials and tribulations of the year, the way this group stayed with it. That seven-week schedule we had was brutal. Our guys came through it all right," Tippett said.

"Early March, probably some games we didn't like as much, but had the ability to turn it around, and then finally the final push to win your last five games to win the division is a real credit to how hard the players have worked and how well they've stayed with it."

Clean slate

The Coyotes were among the league's 10 best in penalty killing during the regular season but 29th out of 30 on the power play.

Right now, Tippett said, that's irrelevant heading into the postseason against the Chicago Blackhawks.

"I think everything in the playoffs is a clean slate all over the place," he said. "I say that as a coach where our penalty-killing has been pretty strong. I wouldn't want a clean slate with that, but I want a clean slate with the power play.

"I look at their situation. Their top players are high-skilled players. If we give them a lot of power plays, they're going to be dangerous. That's just too much of those players out there."

Tippett added that the Coyotes must find a way to make the power play effective, and if it is not producing goals, it must generate momentum.

Aucoin wore 'C'

Defenseman Adrian Aucoin is a former Blackhawks captain, and he said it's by default that traded players eventually match up against their former teams.

"Just having some history with that team, obviously it adds a little bit to it, but realistically, it doesn't matter who we were going to face -- we were going to approach the game the same way."

The Coyotes won three of four games against Chicago this season. Aucoin attributes that to the simple fact of playing hard and not letting the Blackhawks dictate the pace of the game.

"There obviously were a few games where other teams definitely outplayed us or out-competed us, and we played hard, but for the most part, the games we did not fare well in were the games we let other teams do what they wanted."